Bilbao

Our stop in Bilbao was very much a flying visit. We arrived in town late morning and parked up on a great aire with a wonderful overview of the city. It’s not cheap, at €15 for the night, but it’s secure, having an entry/exit barrier and CCTV. Much safer than parking in a big city, with the increased risk of having the van broken into or stolen.

There’s a bus stop outside the aire, with buses every 15 minutes (and a great value fare of €1.25), so in next to no time we were in the city centre. The city’s a lot larger than I expected, and there’s lots to see and do for a long weekend or a mini-break. The main attraction is the Guggenheim Museum, however it’s closed on Mondays so we couldn’t go in (though we’d probably have given it a miss anyway, with an admission fee of €13).

The weather was atrocious, and the torrential rain very much restricted our city sightseeing. We did manage to walk round the old town before the heavens opened, at which point we sought refuge in a bar and watched the thunderstorm over a couple of glasses of wine. We continued on our way when the rain stopped, but the respite was brief and it wasn’t long before we had to take shelter in El Corte Inglés.

Bilbao is in the Basque region of Spain, and is famous for pintxos, so before catching the bus back to the van, we stopped at a pintxos bar for a lovely dinner.

We’re now half way through our last week in Spain. Tomorrow we move onto San Sebastián for a couple of days (and more pintxos!), then on Thursday we will drive over the border to France. As usual, we don’t have any firm plans, but current thinking is that we will travel through southern France in June, and spend July and August in Germany.

Mike